"He's faking it"

The title of this blog post is the joke in our house these days...So many times since Trapper was first diagnosed with lymphoma 2 years and 3+ months ago, he'll act so completely like he did before the diagnosis that Michael will announce "he's faking it". Of course he's not, but it absolutely speaks to his amazing will to live. More on that below :)

Since the last update, I've been so fortunate to have amazing support from so many friends. Your kind, supportive words have helped so much--thank you!!

Last week (Jan 6) Trapper went back to the vet for a CBC and his lymph nodes were normal in size!!! This is the best news! This medicine is much more effective in treating the lymphoma, which is awesome!! His strength has also increased, and the sparkle is back in his eye! The only bummer is that the chemo tanked his white blood cell count. The low end of normal is 6.0 and his count was 0.7. Eek! But, his vet said it's not a big deal as long as we don't expose him to other dogs or places where he could pick up a bug. He's also on some antibiotics that should help protect him. He returns tomorrow (Jan 13) to have his blood levels checked again and hopefully they'll be back to normal, or at least closer. Assuming he's doing better, he will have another chemo treatment on January 20. We've also increased the meds to help his back end strength and he's doing well--he even bounded up 2 steps in one jump a few days ago! 

What?!

Trapper definitely has his sleepy days when he's hard to wake up....those days kind of freak me out!

Trapper has started loving his toys again! This orange ball is no more, though--he tried to eat it ;D

I love this picture! THIS is the sparkle in Trapper's eyes that I always talk about.

I had some down time and thought Trapper and I could spend some quality time together. Trapper wasn't so sure....

And after about 3 minutes he'd officially had enough "quality time" and curled up facing away from me--LOL!

A week ago we were having discussions about how we would make a decision at the end for Trapper. Our wonderful vet advised us (mostly me!) to not obsess every day about Trapper and whether he was better or worse, which is exactly what I was doing. Instead, we set certain dates when we will assess how he's doing. That, combined with Trapper feeling much better has made us all a lot happier :) We are thankful for every day we have with Trapper. 

Kirsta & Trapper (who is counting the days until his 14th birthday!)